Friday, September 28, 2007

On hysteresis

Path dependency, economists love this stuff. I hesitate to call myself an economist, but one could argue that I am an economist in training. People in training, or converts, or born-again-whatevers, are usually worse than the people who were the thing they are all along. Path-dependency can sometimes also be called hysteresis, but the exact difference never became fully clear to me, and I am too lazy to wikipedia it. I always wondered why it is called hysteresis, it sounds like a panicky path down to where no one wants to go. Hysteresis abounds. Look down at your keyboard. Does it say QWERTY? There you go. Technological lock-in or whatever. How about your relationship? Probably hysteresis again. Your job? What you put in your coffee in the morning? I hate posting this over Hannah's confidence entry. Go back to that entry. Hannah is the only person I know who is not subject to hysteresis. She breaks free effortlessly, you name it, she's done it. How does she do it? (I know you claim this isn't a blog- so a letter to you in third-person shouldn't be a priori inappropriate) To all the other people who read this blog (at least, to me): don't let the hysteresis catch up with you.